Tuesday, December 06, 2016

One of the best parts of working in the business that I do, is working with amazingly talented designers. Designers who I respect, admire and love their designs.

Alicia Plummer is one of these designers. We worked together in one of my yarn clubs a few years ago where she created one of my most popular club designs based around the fairy tale, "The Ugly Duckling".

Alicia wrote this about the design..."Green-grey moss clings to granite stonewalls loosely lining the pasture. It is a break in the middle of the trails, an expanse of sky between the forest. The land rolls and dips, the color of faded straw and hay. A well worn footpath weaves through it, leading back into the woods. Planked boardwalks rest at the fringe of the treeline, where shadows are evergreen and secret trails lay hidden."

I love this design! Colorwork is on my list of things to learn how to do better this winter and I think this will be the perfect project! The hat pattern is available now here and the mitt pattern will follow soon.Perfect small knits for Christmas, don't you think?

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Today's post was going to be about the fun Thanksgiving that we all shared, but I decided to leave that for another post as I was excited to receive a group of photos today and wanted to share them with you.

Remember that new knitter that I talked about in this post? Well she has been a diligent student it appears. I haven't taught many people how to knit and truly if you want to know it has been exactly 3. Hannah when she was super young and she never stuck with it. McKayla, my granddaughter who wanted to make a scarf, and my daughter Ashley, who really wants to learn.

With Ashley I changed my tactic as knitting a scarf can be super boring, especially when you are learning because you want some gratification that you are actually doing something. This time around I gave her small challenges. Swatches! Genius..rignt? Never to early to explain how important a swatch is.A swatch is not too big to be overwhelming or boring but just big enough to learn skills.

So, with Ashley I was a task master. I showed her how to cast on (I cast on the first one) and had her knit, knit, knit. She had to rip it back a few times, but I gave her the website, knittinghelp.com, which has some wonderful reference videos to study and they helped to reinforce her casting on skills. I can't say enough good things about this website. I have used it many times myself as an experienced knitter.

Once she mastered the knit stitch, I showed her how to cast off as she and her husband were getting ready to head home after Thanksgiving dinner. Her next assignment was to cast on and purl a swatch after I demonstrated the purl stitch. Even though I told her it would look exactly the same, she called me the other day worried that she had done something wrong because it did look exactly the same.

When she called me, she asked me why she wasn't seeing the "v's" that she had seen mentioned in things she had read, so I explained to her that was referring to stockinette knitting, which is knit one row then purl one row. Today she sent me the above picture, with the comment, What is my next lesson. :)I think she is ready to learn how to knit in the round and make that hat she really wants to knit.

As the Mom to 4 daughters....this makes my heart very happy!I will have to use this method to help my granddaughter learn as I know she is eager to succeed as well.

Seeing those nice stockinette stitches done with my "Grace" yarn reminded me that I wanted to bring this yarn back in a limited quantity. It's not an easy yarn to dye consistently in some colors, but in other colors it comes out lovely, so I will dye up a few colorways and list them after Christmas.~ Knit on!

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Ken was away last week for a few days visiting his family in Pennsylvania and New York. It's always such a long stretch for me being home alone now that the kids are all grown and on their own, but someone has to stay behind and care for the dogs here.

A few weeks ago Ashley told me that she received a free organic turkey for Thanksgiving and thought it would be a good donation for our large Thanksgiving family dinner. Um yes! I was very happy when she told me that she was going to come home this weekend to bring the turkey ...... and....... she wanted me to teach her how to knit!!Whaaat??? One of my 4 daughters who has full access to a yarn shop every day, actually wants to learn how to knit?All of you knitters out there know just how I felt. Remember the Grinch as his heart grew bigger and bigger?Yes, this! As a friend said this weekend. "She is one of us!"

So for a few hours we sat together knitting. God bless her, she was concentrating so hard learning how to knit with her right hand as a lefty. She knows that all of the help videos online are demonstrated by right handed people and after learning to play the guitar left handed, she felt that as a new skill she could do this, and friends...she rocked it!

While she was knitting, I worked on a swatch with a new yarn that I am trying. This is an organic wool worsted weight natural yarn and I am excited about it. I was a joy to knit and blocked out beautifully! Look for it in the next few months.

Tuesday, November 08, 2016

This is the end result of those pieces of rubber that I was playing with over the weekend and I am so happy with it! I wish I had added a stem to the pod at the top, but I can carve an individual stem or create a few different stems to add to the seed pod as I go along. Ken is going to help me make some plexiglass bases to mount the stamps on to make it easier to apply to the fabric.

I'm not going to lie, it took me a number of tries to get a feeling for the carving tools that I am using. Lot's of rubber scrap bits that had to be tossed, but it's all about the process, isn't it? I really enjoyed mixing the paint colors to create a color that was pleasing against the natural linen as well.I can tell I am going to have a lot of fun with this!